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Markets can absolutely be unsustainable. Here's a very simple model of an art ecosystem which can't be sustained by the free market: "Popular art" is widely co
by bccdee 5y ago
Markets can absolutely be unsustainable.
Here's a very simple model of an art ecosystem which can't be sustained by the free market: "Popular art" is widely consumed, but can only be produced by "good artists." "Good artists" are a minority, and must be inspired by "high art." "High art" isn't popular enough to sustain itself, but without it, "popular art" can't exist. Voila, grants are a necessity within the model.
Obviously the model is pretty simplistic, but my point should be clear: You can't just assume that the free market leads to the best outcomes. Lots of the time, incentives just don't line up.
> Academics get pulled in and join the bubble. The whole mess starts moving away from any kind of relevance to wider society and disappears up its own intellectual orifice.
Surely politicians would rather be seen as supporting popular art than academic art, no? "Disappearing into their own orifices" won't impress voters.
Besides, lots of great art gets government grants. I suspect this isn't a real-world problem.
- marcus_holmes 5y agoI dispute that popular art is inspired by, and cannot exist without, high art. Popular art usually comes from street art, not high art.
- bccdee 5y agoThen we can make the reverse argument, substituting "high art" for "the art of the downtrodden," which is sanitized and repackaged for the mainstream. The underlying idea — that the art which inspires popular artists is distinct from the art produced by popular artists — is the same. It's still a simplistic model, but it illustrates the point equally well.
- marcus_holmes 5y agobut the key point about street art is that it is not funded (and I would argue that it cannot be funded - any attempt to do so destroys it).
- bccdee 5y agoSure it is. The artists have to eat somehow.